Some cars bump into things

AA Insurance gripped insurance editors’ imaginations this week with tales of wintry weather accidents. Post Magazine and Insurance Times ran near-identical headlines, setting aside the latter’s inability to distinguish singular from plural. Where Post had AA: icy conditions see 23% rise in motor claims, Insurance Times went with Icy weather see motor claims up 23% in one week.

Yes, the AA says the number of insurance claims reported to its Cardiff call centre was up by almost a quarter in the past week – with the majority of the extra volume accounted for by collisions involving one or more moving vehicles. Moving, generally speaking, one assumes, further or in a direction other than that intended by whoever was driving them at the time.

AA Insurance director, Douglas Simon has a scientific explanation for the phenomenon: “When there is [are?] widespread snow and ice, the proportion of claims where the icy conditions are a contributory factor increases significantly.”

So there you have it. How about some hilarious claims stories? Here you go:

– Had to abandon my car and returned next morning to find the side had been taken out by a snowplough.

– Hit a pile of frozen snow cleared off the road. It was as solid as a concrete block and completely wrecked my car.

– My car slid down a hill on its own – I think it was nudged by another car. It hit a fence.

– Skidded on black ice, hit the kerb, bounced off a tree, hit another car and ended up in the ditch. The accident cause a multiple collision.

– I tried to avoid a large animal standing in a country road – it seemed dazzled by my lights. I braked but skidded on ice and hit it. It turned out to be a wild boar, which ran away but my car was very badly damaged.